Over time there has been an increase in counterfeiting and alterations to identity, travel and other documents, such as drivers licenses, passports, identification cards, and passes. In addition, there has been an increase in counterfeiting and alterations to documents having value, such as negotiable instruments, bonds and other similar documents. This has caused concern to the governments and companies who issue such identity and travel documents; and much financial loss where such counterfeit and altered documents are documents of value.
To hinder such counterfeiting and alterations to identity, travel and similar documents, and documents having value, many innovations have been proposed or introduced. One solution has been the development and implementation of new materials for producing such documents that has made counterfeiting and alterations more difficult, and the detection of counterfeit and altered documents easier and faster. Such new materials include the use of holograms and retro-reflective layers in laminating material, invisible information that only appears when illuminated by certain wavelengths of invisible light or other energy, and different types of inks that are seen as one color under normal ambient light but are seen as a different color when illuminated by certain wavelengths of invisible light or other energy (chemical taggants). In addition, magnetic and radio frequency (RF) taggants that are invisible to the eye are added to base materials and laminating materials but may be detected using special equipment. Further, micro-miniature smart chips and memory chips are embedded in such documents, just as they are in smart cards, and may be used to identify, read and validate documents in which they are embedded, and to identify and validate the bearer of such documents.
One example of a security laminating material used for anti-counterfeiting of passports is 3M's Confirm® security laminate described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,658,411. Another example of a 3M security laminating material used for anti-counterfeiting of passports is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,631,064 and utilizes retro-reflective glass microspheres.
An example of an identity card using smart-card technology has recently been introduced in Malaysia where an embedded computer chip and memory allows the card to be used as a combination identity card, driver's license, cash card, national health service card, and passport.
Coupled with the increase of new materials and new techniques to produce documents that are more difficult to counterfeit or alter, there has been an increase in the demand for new equipment and systems for automatically identifying and validating documents, for validating the identity of a bearer of a document, for verifying that the bearer has authorization to participate in an activity represented by the document, and for comparing information on the document against information databases to determine if there are known concerns about the document or its bearer. This demand has risen because it has become virtually impossible for a person, by themself, to analyze and validate documents using such new materials and other techniques.